With his players' comfort in mind, Holmgren runs relatively light-contact practices, sheltered from the cold. But each week he hands out a trophy, dipped in sarcasm, to the player who spent the most time in the trainers' room.

``We could be ahead 17-0, and he'll jump on us at halftime so you'd think we were losing,'' safety Eugene Robinson said. ``Then we could lose and he might come in and just say, `It's just a bump in the road.' Mike has somehow found a balance between keeping you on edge, and giving you the latitude to do things you need to do.''

Sometimes the sophisticated, San Francisco-bred scholar, sometimes the nutty professor, Holmgren, 48, has coached the Packers from cellar to the Super Bowl in five years. He had been a high school history teacher and a tutor of quarterbacks, never a head coach. But everything changed for the Packers in January 1992, when general manager Ron Wolf interviewed Holmgren and excitedly told president and CEO Robert Harlan, ``I can work with him. I know I can.''

The finest, and most important line Holmgren walks is his relationship with Wolf, a tireless talent assessor who proposes a roster move about every 10 minutes. Coach/GM relationships are causing problems in several cities, but not in Green Bay.

``It's not that the two men don't disagree, but they disagree in a businesslike manner and everybody decides to do what's best for the organization,'' Harlan said. Harlan has extended both their contracts through 1999 and wants to add more years.

Wolf, 57, spent most of his 30 years in the league with the Raiders. After the Packers missed the playoffs for the ninth consecutive season, Harlan hired Wolf, granting sweeping authority, in December 1991. He fired Lindy Infante, who was 24-40 in four years. After talking to Bill Parcells, who chose to stay out of coaching one more year, Wolf hired Holmgren, who had been the 49ers' offensive coordinator through two championship seasons, on Jan. 11, 1992.

And together, Wolf and Holmgren have worked. Displayed prominently on Wolf's desk is an 8 x 10 of the two consulting after a playoff loss. They meet nearly every week at a restaurant down the street from Lambeau Field, and, over steaks and fried mozzarella sticks, discuss Wolf's findings on the scouting trail and Holmgren's practices.

``There's that old phrase that closeness breeds contempt,'' Wolf told The Milwaukee Sentinel. ``I don't think that has occurred here. The more we've been together, the more comfortable we've gotten with each other. I feel very close to Mike from a personal standpoint. The most important thing is that we can talk to one another honestly.''

Wolf has made more trades, 49, than anyone in the NFL the past five years for the Packers, a 14-point favorite in the Super Bowl. There are 34 players from other teams on the roster. Wolf got Reggie White to sign a four-year, $17 million contract in 1993, and with White's help, has attracted nearly every big-name player he has targeted to play in the smallest town in major professional sports.

Holmgren calls him a ``wild man,'' but Wolf has kept his word and never forced a player on his coach. ``Do you know how many trades I've said no to?'' Holmgren said. ``I'm not telling.''

A year before they got together, Wolf, scouting for the Jets, and Holmgren, for the 49ers, were at a Southern Mississippi workout to evaluate Favre. Wolf had the Jets set to draft him in the second round.

``I remember the report I gave to the 49ers,'' Holmgren said. ``I said this guy had one of the strongest arms I'd ever seen. But was he disciplined enough to run our offense? That was the question and I wasn't sure. But if you could get him disciplined enough, you'd have something special.''

The Falcons traded ahead of the Jets and got Favre, but the first move of the Wolf-Holmgren union in Green Bay was to send a first-round pick to Atlanta to get Favre.

After Favre became the starter, Holmgren became the heavy. Steve Mariucci, then the quarterbacks coach, buffered Favre those first two years, when Holmgren screamed and hollered. And nothing makes Holmgren, a quarterback in high school and college, madder than when his quarterback messes up. As an assistant coach at Brigham Young, Holmgren shouted ``get over here'' to Steve Young, who was so alarmed by the protruding veins in Holmgren's neck, he shouted back, `Not till you calm down, Coach.' '' Young said when Holmgren gets mad, those veins make him look as if he is having an angioplasty.